


Dream, Repent

by Xairathan



Series: Fate/TTRPG [2]
Category: Fate/Grand Order
Genre: F/F, Jalter-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-17
Updated: 2020-02-17
Packaged: 2021-02-19 02:55:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22770781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xairathan/pseuds/Xairathan
Summary: I wanted religious Jaltora so I ate an orange in the shower and was visited by a revelationHow are those connected? I have no idea but if it ain't broke don't fix itDedicated to the rest of the Jaltora Coalition, Which Is Called A Coalition Because If It Has More Members Than Asurei Does, It's A Coalition, Brought To You By A Debate Between Graduate Students------Anyways this is (non-canonically) based off the FGO TTRPG that Wesakechak is running, because I'm too impatient to wait 9 months to imagine Kagetora and Jalter reuniting
Relationships: Jeanne d'Arc Alter | Avenger/Nagao Kagetora | Lancer
Series: Fate/TTRPG [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1857889
Comments: 1
Kudos: 12





	Dream, Repent

**Author's Note:**

  * For [corgasbord](https://archiveofourown.org/users/corgasbord/gifts), [Wesakechak](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wesakechak/gifts), [BreadCrumble](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BreadCrumble/gifts).



> I wanted religious Jaltora so I ate an orange in the shower and was visited by a revelation  
> How are those connected? I have no idea but if it ain't broke don't fix it  
> Dedicated to the rest of the Jaltora Coalition, Which Is Called A Coalition Because If It Has More Members Than Asurei Does, It's A Coalition, Brought To You By A Debate Between Graduate Students  
> \------
> 
> Anyways this is (non-canonically) based off the FGO TTRPG that Wesakechak is running, because I'm too impatient to wait 9 months to imagine Kagetora and Jalter reuniting

Jeanne Alter, her feet dangling off the side of the bed, lifts her eyes in vain to the starless skies. There’s not a glimmer of true light in this blackened Shinjuku, and it’s only fitting that Jeanne Alter’s found herself here. Idly, she wonders if that’s why there are two other Alters here, stalking the asphalt jungle with souls as tainted as hers. Yes, this is the only proper gathering place for them, a walled-off city where those humans that survive are just as monstrous as the twisted legends roaming with them.

A gentle clink of metal resonates up from near Jeanne Alter’s knees. The chain clasp of her cape, wound carelessly around her hands, slips link by link in an unbroken stream over her fingers. Were it not for their cold, the tang like burnt iron that hangs from them like a second weight, Jeanne Alter might have mistaken them for something else. Something smaller, lighter, rounder. Something slipped along the underside of her thumb, rote prayers lifting from lips that aren’t hers, praying to a God that Jeanne Alter knows could never be listening.

Abruptly, Jeanne Alter stands. She’s grown tired of this place. Her hand clenches in time with her stride; the chain strains, crumbles, fades. What’s left are little motes of ash on the linoleum floor. Jeanne Alter knocks the door askew with her shoulder, bursting out into the roaring night. Flight by flight, the artificial stars of Shinjuku rise and cover the streets in unbroken shadow. Jeanne Alter pays them no mind, descending slowly into the thick haze of death and silence, her methodical cadence one both known and unknown to her.

* * *

Again, Jeanne Alter finds herself in a windowless room. It’s not the windows that unnerve her; Jeanne Alter couldn’t care less whether she could see the city or not, but this does afford her some modicum of privacy.

What she can’t stand are the personal touches. The dents in pillows made by habits spanning years, the smells of watered-down perfume and cheap beer. Sterility and cleanliness are what Jeanne Alter has grown to accept, though if she could have it her way, she’d trade in a heartbeat for a grassy resting place in a forest grove.

At least, with how Shinjuku is now, Jeanne Alter is never short on yen to buy a room with. She doesn’t stay in the same place twice; that flirts too closely to the line of familiarity that Jeanne Alter’s sworn never to cross. It’s for the same reason that she refuses to sleep in apartments that’ll never be filled again.

(She tells herself it’s because she hates to see the mementos there: the pictures, the shopping lists, the hints of a life lost to the city’s hunger. That couldn’t be further from the truth.)

Enclosed in midnight walls, Jeanne Alter lets sleep visit her.

(She does not sleep in the same place twice, because Hell chases her everywhere— in fire beneath her eyelids, in the souls who encroach upon her territory, and in her dreamed-up swirls of monochrome that she knows, as much as she knows every falsehood she’s wrought, would never visit a city this broken.)

* * *

There’s a reason Jeanne Alter can say for certain that God can’t exist.

One’s begging at her feet. His yellow helmet is shattered; his gun ran out of bullets half a minute ago, and then he’d tried to run. It was futile, and they both knew it. Whoever encroached on the Dragon Witch’s territory got burnt, no exceptions. Even if leniency was in Jeanne Alter’s blood, this city would’ve wrung it out of her. Weakness invites incursions. From there, a single misstep would tumble anyone into ruin.

The man’s pleas crash deaf against Jeanne Alter’s ears. She’s grown tired of this. Before, she’d enjoyed their begging, their screaming. She’d loved it as much as she’d delighted in watching that bishop, Pierre, melt like a candle under her flame. Now, she’s heard it all. People have asked her for mercy, for their lives. They’ve offered their loyalty, their money. Jeanne Alter’s given nothing, taken her dues, left only ashes, and all the thrill’s gone out of it.

It’s only been a month, two at most.

Imagine hearing this for thousands of years.

If, somehow, God still did exist in spite of that, then only a truly good god could tolerate all of this, _and_ that goody two shoes original of hers.

But then, any god that could listen to such pleas and not be moved would be as twisted as Jeanne Alter herself.

That’s how she knows God can’t be real.

It still doesn’t stop Jeanne Alter’s fingers from winding a chain in moments of idle passing, from looking for a moon she knows she’ll never find. Knowing something not to be real had never stopped Jeanne Alter from chasing it anyway.

(It’s just another flaw of hers she’ll never be able to shake.)

* * *

Jeanne Alter listens to the city breathe around her. There’s the howling of the monster that stalks the western quarter, the shriek of the dark Saber’s motorcycle. They’re far from the edges of her territory. For another night, the truces and agreements hold. It’s the closest to normalcy that Jeanne Alter’s known, that she thinks she’ll ever get.

There’s something else running around in the darkness, though. Jeanne Alter feels it from her perch atop a high-rise: magical energy, new and honed, moving in a determined mass. It could only be Servants, but new ones had stopped manifesting within the first weeks of the Singularity’s birth.

(Jeanne Alter does not let herself think of the only thing this could mean. She’s long since given up on hope and anything remotely associated with the concept.)

Leaping over rooftops, Jeanne Alter glimpses another blur against the stain of illuminating light. The blackened Archer is out hunting, too— just for a different quarry. He’s a flash of color against a tarnished sky and gone, and forgotten.

There’s more important things to be concerned with, anyway.

A block away, Jeanne Alter drops to street level. Though the enemy’s likely felt her coming, there’s no use in giving away her precise position. Her standard and sword materialize in her hands, the closest things to comforts that she knows. She can hear her targets’ voices swelling with close-packed Shinjuku’s acoustics. So close, so close, and now—

Jeanne Alter steps around the corner. Her sword and flag melt away into intangible embers. She was wrong. Hope had been an unbending smile. As a mirthful laugh fills the air and the hollow in Jeanne Alter’s chest, her fingers begin to move: her thumb slides between the first and second knuckles of her forefinger, trembling with the same relief that drops her to her knees, counting the time of a laugh she’d thought she could only dream of.

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't even talk about Jalter's command seals or loneliness in here  
> I give this a 7/10 but not bad for being written in one go at 2 AM


End file.
